Paul Tillich

Theologian

  • Born: August 20, 1886
  • Birthplace: Starzeddel, Germany
  • Died: October 22, 1965
  • Place of death: Chicago, Illinois

German-born American theologian and philosopher

Tillich introduced a unique and challenging approach to theology, in which the study of theology begins as an analysis of the human condition and the philosophical questions arising from it. This marked a keynote of his thinking. He maintained that any theological study originated in a philosophical question. Without philosophy, according to Tillich, theology had no questions and, therefore, nothing to study.

Areas of achievement Religion and theology, philosophy

Early Life

Paul Tillich (TIHL-ihk) was born in Starzeddel, in the province of Brandenburg in eastern Germany, an area that later became part of Poland. His father, a Lutheran pastor from eastern Germany, instilled in his son a love for philosophy. Much of Tillich’s later attitude toward traditional authority, however, was a negative reaction to the stern conservativeness of his father. Tillich was deeply fond of his mother, the more influential of his parents. She was from the progressive western part of Germany and encouraged her son to explore new ideas. The family also included two daughters.

Tillich loved the country life, where, although his family was in the upper class, he went to a public school and made most of his close boyhood friends from among the poorer classes. His later leanings toward socialism were begun in these friendships. When his father was called to a new position in Berlin in 1900, the fourteen-year-old Tillich found that he was also strongly attracted to the excitement of Berlin. In addition, he found great relaxation and contemplative value at the shore of the Baltic Sea, where the family vacationed each year.

When Tillich was seventeen, his mother died of melanoma, a painful form of cancer. This tragedy left him psychologically and spiritually destitute. The feeling of abandonment and betrayal, as if he had lost all direction, meaning, and stability, was to color his entire personal and professional life.

With his university work at Breslau, Tillich earned a doctor of philosophy degree in 1910, going on to earn a licentiate of theology from Halle. He identified membership in a Christian student organization called the Wingolf Society as the most influential chapter in his life. This group of seventy men spent late nights in deep theological and philosophical debates, followed by smaller, quieter conversations continuing until nearly dawn. In August of 1912, he followed in his father’s steps, receiving ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

When he was twenty-seven, Tillich married Grethi Wever, a woman much older than he. That same year, with the outbreak of war in Europe, he volunteered for service in the army as chaplain. During the next four years, he earned two Iron Crosses for valor, even though he suffered three nervous breakdowns during his service.

While Tillich was in the army, his wife had an affair with one of his friends and gave birth to a child. A child born earlier to the Tillichs had died in infancy. After a two-year separation, the couple divorced in 1921.

In the meantime, Tillich became involved in the decadence and excesses that marked German society in the postwar period. Some even suggested that he resign from any further work in theology. It was in that social setting that he met Hannah Werner, who was already engaged to be married. Even so, they maintained a heated romance for a time, then resumed it after she left her new husband to return to Berlin to be with Tillich. She brought with her an infant child, whom she placed in a nursing home. When the child died there, her husband divorced her, and she married Tillich in 1924. A daughter, Erdmuthe, was born to them in 1926, and nine years later, a son, René Stephan.

Tillich was blond and possessed a face that seemed to have been chiseled from marble. He had tremendous personal charm and, as a public speaker, a commanding presence.

Life’s Work

Tillich began his career as a teacher in 1919, when he accepted a position as instructor at the University of Berlin. Because of the nature of the position, he needed the financial support of others during this time. His private life was very much in turmoil during those years. In addition to his divorce and remarriage, he suffered the death of his older sister, yet he was able to establish himself as a competent teacher and remained at Berlin until 1924. His lectures began to receive a somewhat wider audience, and he was able to publish a number of articles.

From Berlin, Tillich left with his wife for Marburg for a position as associate professor of theology at the university there. During this time, his first real success came with the publication of his book The Religious Situation(1925). However, the Tillichs were unhappy in the smaller community of Marburg, and after three semesters, in 1925, they moved to the Dresden Institute of Technology, where he had full professorship. Over the next four years, he continued to publish and gain recognition as a speaker. He also took a position as adjunct professor of systematic theology at the University of Leipzig. In 1929, Tillich accepted a full professorship at the University of Frankfurt. There, he lectured on religion, culture, the social situation, and philosophy.

The growing power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party disturbed Tillich. He spoke and wrote with increasing strength against Nazi tactics. As a result, he lost his position at Frankfurt and was advised by friends and officials to go into exile. By the fall of 1933, he was being followed by members of the Gestapo.

Tillich’s writings, however, had gained some international recognition. When efforts were made in New York City to bring to the United States those German intellectuals who were in trouble because of their resistance to Hitler, Union Theological Seminary in New York invited Tillich to join the faculty. Early in November, 1933, he arrived in New York and began an intensive study to learn the English language.

Tillich’s early lectures at the seminary were interrupted by occasional outbursts of laughter among the students over the instructor’s attempts to use the right words in the right order. He blushed easily and, for a while, had a difficult time dealing with the new environment. In Germany, it would have been unthinkable for students to laugh at the professor for any reason. Tillich’s lectures introduced to the students some ideas that they had never heard presented in a classroom situation. His thinking very much reflected the influences of personal as well as social and political events. It was his contention that “truth is bound to the situation of the knower.”

Tillich’s view that God is unable to speak to humans meant that God must therefore reveal truth, not only in the biblical records, or in Jesus Christ alone, but also through other means, including the human predicament and human expressions such as art and literature.

While for Tillich the Scriptures were the primary source for theological study, they certainly were not the only source. Church history, the Reformation, and the flow of culture were equally valid sources for his systematic theology. Tillich’s study of theology thus began as an analysis of the human condition and the philosophical questions arising from it. This marked a keynote of his thinking. He maintained that any theological study originated in a philosophical question. One of his statements, which led many to accuse him of being an atheist, was that God does not exist. His explanation was that God is existence itself, being itself, not some existing being who is simply higher than all other beings. He said that he did not know if there was a devil and that he was uncertain about his own salvation.

In the United States, Tillich did not participate in the local church and its programs. In fact, he often saw enemies of the church, who worked for social change, as more useful than the church.

Tillich’s grasp of social issues, political viewpoints (he was a socialist, but disavowed any political affiliation while in the United States), art, religion, and psychology, blended with his natural intelligence and almost actorlike quality of presentation, made him a favorite among the Union faculty. Seminary president Henry Sloane Coffin said, “I don’t understand what he says, but when I look at his face I believe.” In the twenty-two years he was in New York, Tillich also taught at Columbia University. In 1940, at age fifty-three, he became a citizen of the United States but maintained a deep love for his German homeland. In 1948, fifteen years after he left his native country, he made the first of several trips back to Germany.

Tillich moved to Harvard Divinity School in 1955 and was soon named university professor, which freed him to study and teach in any discipline he chose. During this period, his growing reputation gained for him worldwide recognition. Some of his classes at the school were so popular that students would come one hour early simply to get a good seat in the lecture hall.

A position as professor of theology at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago was offered to him, and Tillich moved to the Midwest in the fall of 1962. He also conducted seminars in the winter quarters of 1963 and 1964 at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Tillich’s health began to fail while he was in Chicago. Even so, in the spring of 1965, Tillich received two offers a full professorship at Santa Barbara, and an invitation to hold the chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Tillich accepted the position in New York, to begin the following year, but on October 12, 1965, he suffered a heart attack.

Tillich died in Chicago ten days later, after asking his wife, Hannah, to forgive him for his unfaithfulness to her. His body was cremated, and after seven months in the East Hampton, New York, cemetery, his ashes were reinterred in a park named in his honor in New Harmony, Indiana.

Significance

Tillich believed orthodoxy to be intellectual Pharisaism, and he challenged many accepted tenets of Christianity. He rejected faith in a personal God, the historic fall into sin, the work of Christ, and the validity of prayer.

Most significantly, Tillich wanted to be a philosopher and called himself a theologian. Without philosophy, according to Tillich, theology had no questions, and therefore, nothing to study. It was this combination theology and philosophy that determined his approach to religion and won for him many devoted followers as well as many severe critics. It also was the means to widespread recognition. His influence extends around the world. Scores of books and articles by Tillich and hundreds more about him and his views have been published on every continent.

Bibliography

Carey, John J. Paulus, Then and Now: A Study of Paul Tillich’s Theological World and the Continuing Relevance of His Work. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2002. Places Tillich’s thought in political, social, economic, and scholarly context and examines how his ideas apply to contemporary problems.

Crossman, Richard C. Paul Tillich: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Keyword Index of Primary and Secondary Writings in English. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1983. A source book for titles of Tillich’s writings (to 1983) in English and of articles, books, dissertations, theses, and reviews about Tillich.

Donnelly, Brian. The Socialist Emigre: Marxism and the Later Tillich. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2003. Donnelly analyzes the foundations of Tillich’s philosophy, focusing on Marxism and maintaining that Tillich incorporated many Marxist ideas into his own theology.

Freeman, David Hugh. Recent Studies in Philosophy and Theology. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1962. Compares Tillich’s views with those of other liberal theologians.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Tillich. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1962. A book that fiercely assails Tillich’s work in two areas: his view of God and his view of Revelation.

Johnson, Wayne G. Theological Method in Luther and Tillich. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981. Defends Tillich’s approach to theology by making comparisons at different points with the theology of Martin Luther.

Lyons, James R. The Intellectual Legacy of Paul Tillich. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1969. Printed versions of lectures by three scholars as they evaluate Tillich as philosopher and theologian and as an observer of psychiatry. Includes brief biographical notes and a letter Tillich wrote (to Thomas Mann) in 1943.

May, Rollo. Paulus: Reminiscences of a Friendship. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Extremely personal glimpses of Tillich by the man recognized as his best friend during his thirty-two years in the United States.

Newport, John P. Paul Tillich. Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1984. One of the best and most complete books on Tillich. Includes an excellent biographical section, plus chapters on Tillich’s views and evaluations of those views.

Tillich, Paul. On the Boundary: An Autobiographical Sketch. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966. A description of Tillich’s belief that he lived his life in tension between conflicting forces.

1901-1940: 1923: Buber Breaks New Ground in Religious Philosophy.

1941-1970: 1941: Bultmann Offers a Controversial Interpretation of the Christian Scriptures; 1952: Tillich Examines Modern Anxiety in The Courage to Be.